Take it very seriously. Have you ever known Apple to admit any flaws or defects until their feet were held to the fire? There is ample evidence that Apple corporate chose to cut corners wherever possible to maximize profits and drive the stock price up. Thankfully the engineers built backups into the hardware because they knew better. The original 128K even had two sets of mounting holes for the flyback transformer for what the engineers knew would require the eventual upgrade to a more robust one (in much the same way the original logicboard was designed to handle 512K RAM). It is well documented in many repair manuals that substandard caps were used, all steadily upgraded in successive improvements. The analogue board itself went through at least 6 revisions over 3 years to improve the poor PSU performance. Keep in mind when manufacturing millions of units, every penny counts. Why buy a three-cent cap when a one-cent cap will technically do the job? Over a million unites, that's an extra $20K in their pocket. Besides, no company is ever going to say they under- engineered something. But the proof is in the hardware and field performance.
By the late 80s, Apple was charging so much money for the Mac, that they could afford to put the highest spec hardware into them as engineers had specified. It saved them a lot of headaches and money in repairs. I mean why did they add a fan (a cheap one at that), if not addressing the complaints that the Mac needed one, though I don't recall Apple ever admitting they made a mistake not adding one in the first place? The late Pluses benefitted from an SE designed following the mistakes learned from the compacts before it, and the fact the analogue board used many of the same parts which could be ordered in even greater quantity discount. This is why the later Pluses had fewer repairs than the beige ones. On Mar 6, 4:44 pm, James Fraser <wheresthatistanbul-pcil...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Hello, > > --- On Sat, 3/6/10, Mac128 <mac128mail-h...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > > Not sure when you bought yours, but the > > Plus had a healthy life into the turn of the century before OS X and > > the internet invaded all facets of our lives. The later, more reliable > > Platinum ones would have been held onto until they could no longer > > justify their desk space, thus delaying their wide entry into the > > market. > > When you say "more reliable," are you referring to the different (purportedly > better) power supply in the Platinum model? > > I've never been quite sure how seriously to take that, myself. Did Apple > ever come right out and admit that the power supplies in the beige models > could be problematic? Or was this something that was only known and discussed > among end users at the time? > > Best, > > James Fraser -- ----- You received this message because you are a member of the Vintage Macs group. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to vintage-macs@googlegroups.com To leave this group, send email to vintage-macs+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs Support for older Macs: http://lowendmac.com/services/
